02020cam a22002417 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002600070245010200096260006600198490004200264500001600306520102800322530006101350538007201411538003601483690006501519710004201584830007701626856003801703856003701741w12118NBER20161209201048.0161209s2006 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aFriedman, Benjamin M.14aThe Greenspan Erah[electronic resource]:bDiscretion, Rather Than Rules /cBenjamin M. Friedman. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2006.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w12118 aMarch 2006.3 aWhat stands out in retrospect about U.S. monetary policy during the Greenspan Era is the ongoing movement away from mechanistic restrictions on the conduct of policy, together with a willingness on occasion to depart even from what more flexible guidelines dictated by contemporary conventional wisdom would imply, in the interest of carrying out the Federal Reserve System's dual mandate to pursue both stable prices and maximum employment. Part of this change was procedural -- for example, the elimination of money growth targets. The most substantive demonstration of policy flexibility came in the latter half of the 1990s, as unemployment fell below 6% (in 1994), then below 5% (in 1997), and then remained below 5% for more than four years, yet the Federal Reserve did not tighten monetary policy. This policy stance was consistent with a view of the economy, including faster productivity growth and increased exposure to international competition, that Chairman Greenspan had articulated nearly a decade before. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aE52 - Monetary Policy2Journal of Economic Literature class.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w12118.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1211841uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w12118